I cant believe that the dealer charges as much as they do for the wiper blades. Im sure that some of you may know but for most of us, It is possible to change out your wiper blades for refills without having to buy a new wiper arm. I did it on my tahoe. I only paid $3.49 for the 22 inch refill that had two blades. My 07 was built in January 06 so my blades were toast. They don't last long in Texas. I figured, what the heck, I really needed somenew ones so if I do tear up the factory wiper blade trying this experiment, I would still have to buyaset ofnew wiper blades for $30.00 a pieceat the Dealer anyway. All you have to do is carefully remove the plasic ends of the wiper blade, rip off the old rubber wiper, and slide the new rubber wiper in its place. Then replace the plasic endcaps. For the driver side, you do have to cut off about half a inch of the new rubber wiperfor it to fit. Just use a sharp razor blade. It only took me 10 minutes to do both wiper bladesI tested my new wipers at 70mph and they were still streak free. Here are some pics. Idont think they look bad. They kinda have a low profile look. And you really dont evenneed thosetwo little clips that go between theendcaps. Feel free to try it out if you have an worn out set. It could save you some money between wiper blade changes anyway. I hope this helps.




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There is one thing I did forget to mention. On some refills, all you have to do is remove the two stainless steel metal strips from the refill in order to slip in the new rubberinto the old wiper blade. On some refills, thenew rubber is surrounded by black plastic. In that case, just gently pull on the rubber at one end till it slips out of the plastic channel.

 

Wasn't that end cap a real PITA to remove? []
They really don't want you to do what we are doing.

 

Yes, the first one was a big pain. I almost aborted the whole mission. But I figured that if you use a narrow flat head screwdriver, you just work one end off a little and work on the other. Then it should slip off. Once you do it a few times, its not to bad. Its been a few weeks now and the re-filled wipers still work great. I figure that I can at least buy me sometime betweenthe next Factory New set.

 

Where did you purchase the replacement wiper blades? Could you share the type or product no?

 

Advance Auto carries them on-line. They are a Trico refill. Be advised that the refill does not have the air deflector fin that is on the top part of the blade.

 

OK, they have been tested at 70 mph, but for how long can they withstand the abuse?

It would really suck to drive an hour or two in the rain and have the rubberfly offwhile the metel wiper armscratches your window. And to boot you would have to finish the trip with no wipers on.

You can save $30.00 now that might cost you $400.00 later?

 

I spent a little more money but went with the 'higher end" (read, more expensive in the store) Trico replacement blades from Advanced Auto Parts. They were $17 each and literally took about 60 seconds to install both. They were the only dealer that had a direct replacement for the 07 Tahoe because of the wierd connector.

If you go with those, you just have to press the connector in and it pulls right off. The new ones just snap back into place and you are done.

Worked out well as we got two inches of rain here in Tampa yesterday!

Jon

 

You know you would think it would much easier just to buy a replacement and it would just slide in w/o having to take everything apart. I tried the Rain-X latitude and it will not fit. The only thing I can think of is to remove the whole thing and try to pry open the middle piece and then use the Rain-X piece. WTF why cant GM just make an easy fix like everyone else.

 

Oh that's good to know as I "assumed" the rain-x was the direct replacment as they look the same, I havn't had to replace mine yet (almost a year old, not counting the time it sat on the lot) I park in the garage at work and home so they see very little sun. I think I have driven inthe rain maybe 3-4 times since I have had the truck...